Author: jillwitty

As I start this blog post, I’m in the last 4 hours (not that I’m counting!) of my fifth fast. A few of you have been asking how it’s going. (If you’re confused, head to my last post.) Below, a bit of the fasting play by play. If you’d rather skip the diary part, and just hit the takeaways, scroll down to below the photo.

January 2:Fasting from dinner 1/1 until dinner 1/2

7am- awake; it’s a holiday so I’m not going into work. Will this make things easier or harder? I help the kids with their breakfasts and am not tempted to join them. This will be a piece of cake! Right?

10:30am: first hunger pangs. Not a good sign, given 7.5 hours left until I eat.

Noon: time is starting to pass more slowly. How early can I force my family to eat dinner? I cook the kids’ lunch. Does the chicken apple sausage always smell this good? I open a peach Hint water and it tastes almost like candy.

2:30pm: serious hunger pangs. I try to do a bit of work during the kids’ quiet time and drink lots of lemon ginger tea.

4pm: I no longer feel hungry! Amazing!

5pm: I’m ravenous. That 4pm lack of hunger was a joke. Dinner is in one hour and I can. not. wait.

6pm: Dinner at last! I’m expecting my body to want to eat a ton, to make up for all the calories I missed during the fast. Instead, I let myself have seconds, but my meal is only a bit larger than usual. I go to bed feeling sated– neither full nor hungry.

January 5:Fasting from dinner 1/4 to dinner 1/5

Morning: I’m at work, and fasting feels easy. My body doesn’t seem to miss the breakfast that I skipped. This might mean I should be skipping breakfast more often.

Noon: I go to the Dailey Method (a barre class) during lunch hour. I go despite having very little energy. At the point in class where we go into plank, I can barely hold it, and put my knees down after 30 seconds. It feels like no fuel is getting to my muscles.

5:30pm: ferry home from work. I am telling everyone around me about my fast and how few minutes I have left until I get to eat. I can’t help myself. I update them every 10 minutes. I dream of the dinner that G will have prepared: fish fillets, sautéed spinach, and couscous.

6:15pm: I get home and practically run to the kitchen. The couscous and spinach are ready, but my fish isn’t cooked yet. What??? I feel like a husband from 1950’s TV, expecting my dinner ready and hot the moment I get home, and angry when it’s not. I eat the spinach and couscous while making the fish as fast as I can (catch the pun?).

January 9:Fasting from dinner 1/8 to dinner 1/9

Morning: I do yoga before work. This is normal for me- I usually work out first thing in the morning, before eating anything. However, the non-fasting me would eat breakfast as soon as arriving to work. My fasting self gets to work, promptly pours a cup of hot tea, and tries not to think about the food I’m not sending to my body. Post-workout, I definitely want food. Tea is not the same.

Noon: I have work to do at my desk and barely notice that I didn’t eat lunch.

Afternoon: More herbal tea. Then a Peach-Pear LaCroix. Back to back meetings help prevent me from thinking about food too much.

5pm: Early ferry home- this means early dinner! Again, I have to tell all my seatmates about my fast. It’s as though I have nothing else to talk about. People are interested or else they are good at faking it.

5:45pm: Arrive home. The au pair made dinner for the kids but not for me (here comes the angry 1950’s husband again!). I whip together a plate and scarf it down before driving my daughter to piano lessons. Food is a relief; my body feels much better right away.

January 12: Fasting from lunch 1/11 to lunch 1/12

Noon 1/11: I eat a sizable lunch, and I even allow myself a piece of cake afterwards. “After all, I’m about to fast!”

Afternoon: perfectly normal. It feels nice not to be tempted to snack.

Dinner: I don’t even feel hungry. I sit with my family while they eat dinner, but I don’t feel deprived. If anything, I wonder why I so often make myself eat dinner when I’m not hungry.

Bedtime: My stomach feels pleasantly empty. Not empty to the point of growling, but nicely “un-full.” I suspect I’ll sleep well. (I do.)

Morning 1/12: I am hungry. I bring the kids to school and make myself an herbal tea. T minus 4 hours until I get to eat.

10:15am: A friend picks me up for us to drive down to a meeting together. I am now very hungry. I tell him about my fast and how excited I am for lunch (Indian food). I drink more herbal tea and stare jealously at his latte.

11:30am: We arrive at the meeting. Lunch is supposed to be at noon. Our host says lunch will be late. A small part of me dies.

12:30pm: Lunch arrives, but there is some debate about whether we should finish the presentation before breaking for lunch. “Please, please, please let us get lunch!” I am thinking. As though she could read my mind (or hear my stomach growling?), our host stops us for lunch. I am first in line for the Indian food. (So much for my month of kindness.) I have a full plate and return for seconds.

January 17: fasting from lunch 1/16 to lunch 1/17

Afternoon 1/16: I am baking a cake. It is so strange not to be able to taste the batter.

Dinner: I’m not hungry. I don’t feel deprived.

After dinner: I return home from piano lesson to a house that smells like freshly-baked cake. My stomach growls. I make the cream cheese frosting and frost the cake. I don’t taste it– probably a first. I force G to taste it for me. He approves.

7am: Ferry into the city. I am hungry and I am carrying a cake that weighs about 10 pounds. I tell a friend of mine about my fast. She gives me two packets of tea. I head to the gym and do 1/2 hour of weight training.

8:30am: At work and there are treats galore. Doughnuts, chocolates. I make an herbal tea.

10am: More tea. T minus two hours until feast time.

11am: I am now on my third herbal tea.

11:40am: The smells of lunch are making their way to me. I walk by the lunch area 3 times in 5 minutes to see whether they have finished setting up.

11:55am: Lunch, finally! I make a large plate of Vietnamese food and down about 1/3 of it before I have to hop in my next meeting. It is so satisfying.

1pm: I present the cake to the birthday girls. We each have a piece. It was worth it.

Hummingbird cake. You can’t eat this on a normal diet.

So– two weeks into my fasting experiment, here are a few of the things I’ve noticed.

It’s easier than I thought it would be. I had this idea that skipping meals would feel terrible, that I’d be cranky, nervous, or de-energized. In practice, it’s not that hard.

Except for the last two hours. I’m sure that much of this is psychological. If we took away all clocks, would the last two hours before I break the fast still be the hardest? Would my body even know that those were the last two hours? Surely not. But, since I am surrounded by clocks, and since my work schedule is relentlessly calendar-driven, I am constantly aware of the time. And there’s no escaping it: I am HUNGRY for those last two hours. And they pass soooo sloooowly.

I usually eat for reasons other than hunger. Namely: because it’s “time” to eat. Or because I am a social being, and everyone else is eating dinner, so I should, too. In my non-fasting life, it is rare that I feel hunger. I almost never get to that point. I am so busy feeding myself every 4-6 hours, when would I give my body a chance to get hungry? It is almost refreshing to eat out of hunger. It feels… new.

“Hangry” is an apt coinage. I am quicker to get angry when I am very hungry. I am also quicker to lose my focus on work, so focused am I on my next meal. I’m waiting to see whether this is a passing phase.

I feel like I’ve been duped by the “eat frequent, small meals” or “always eat breakfast” mantras. Haven’t we all been saying these to ourselves and each other for years now? Hasn’t this become the wisdom of the ages- unquestioned in its truthfulness? I think back on all the breakfasts I’ve dutifully eaten, or the frequency with which I often eat, and I wonder– could I have been wrong? If I’m being honest, it feels good to skip breakfast on a morning after a big dinner. It feels good *not* to eat frequent, small meals. What if these “truths” have been misguided?

Lunch to lunch fasting is easier (for me) than dinner to dinner. I had initially thought to fast from dinner-to-dinner because that would just mean fasting during the workday– which seemed easy enough. And while it wasn’t hard (except for the last two hours), I do think lunch to lunch is even easier. Personally, I hate going to bed on a full stomach. But if my last meal before a fast is dinner, I’m tempted to eat heavily. And then I’m full at bed time, and then I sleep poorly. Blah. Whereas the lunch-to-lunch fast means I go to bed without dinner (not a challenge), and then I only have to make it through the morning hours without breakfast, until I get to eat again. Incredibly doable.

I am losing weight without too much burden. When I’m not fasting, I eat the way I normally would. I exercise the same amount. I don’t feel deprived. And I don’t have to follow crazy diet rules, or count calories, or track what I’m eating. Which is nice. And I’ve lost a pound per week so far, which is a reasonable pace of loss.

So for those who ask me how it’s going, I’ll tell you: I’m kind of into it. It’s a fun, “fast-inating” experiment. I feel more in touch with my body than I have in a long time (ever?). I’ll report back again at the end of the month, but for now, I feel like I may have stumbled upon something that’s game-changing.

Ah, January. That time of year when we reassess ourselves: our habits, our downfalls, our opportunities. Oh, and our bodies. Who among us is ever content with our body? Last January I embarked on a month of veganism, which I rather enjoyed (although not enough to keep it as a permanent diet). This month, I’m turning to another diet and sometime fad: intermittent fasting (IF).

First, an explanation. “What happened to December?” you ask. Well– you know how a lot of magazines only put out 11 issues each year, shrewdly combining December and January into one issue? Because they know that at least two weeks of December will be completely shot, thereby making it nearly impossible to produce the usual amount of output? My December was chaos, between work obligations, holiday plans, and travel. So let’s consider my blog a magazine, and this is the December/January issue.

I did use December to decide on and research the fasting concept. As it turns out, there are a lot of different ways to fast. Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

First: why would I fast? Well, aside from the fact that I’ve never done it– which is the first criterion of any “year of 40” experience– I’ve long been intrigued by it. I’ve never really had an excuse to fast. There are those who fast for religious reasons: for Ramadan, for example, Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown for an entire month.¹ A perusal of Wikipedia reveals a number of other cultures and faiths that incorporate fasting as a part of their tradition.

I don’t practice a religion, and even when I did, my Presbyterian-Catholicism upbringing didn’t ask me to skip meals. But the fact that so many cultures and traditions include some version of fasting makes me curious. What do they know, and what do they experience, that I don’t?

It isn’t primarily cultural curiosity that leads me down this path. I’ve also paid attention to the research about possible health benefits of intermittent fasting (IF), or of calorie restriction. Studies of IF make lots of claims: We can live longer. We reduce the likelihood of strokes, of diabetes, of heart disease, of degenerative brain diseases later in life. Our bodies clean out their dead or damaged cells (“autophagy“). Oh, and we lose weight, and possibly maintain the weight loss better than we would with other diets.

Frankly– if the evidence is to be believed– why wouldn’t we fast?

So, I decided to try it, and with a fair amount of excitement. I then had to choose which fasting approach to follow. Sunrise to sunset? 36 hours? Low calorie, or no calorie? This is where the research finds little consensus. One popular method of IF has you eat the same amount you normally would, but within the space of 8 hours (so you “fast” for the other 16 hours). For instance, if you finish dinner by 8pm, you wouldn’t eat again until noon the next day. I considered this idea, but I decided that if I were going to try fasting, I might as well swim in the deep end.

For no reason other than it sounded challenging, but not impossible, I decided to try 24 hour fasts, on two non-consecutive days each week (as it turns out, this approach has a name- the 5:2 diet). In practical terms, this means that I eat dinner one night, and then I don’t eat again until dinner the next night. During the fast, I drink only water or unsweetened tea. On the five non-fasting days of the week, I eat normally.

I don’t know that I can hope for any tangible results from the fasting experiment, other than shedding a few pounds, but I’m curious to see how it goes.

In my next blog post, I’ll detail some of my fasting experience so far. Stay tuned!

* * *

¹This becomes more challenging depending on the time of year that Ramadan falls, and where you live in the world. If Ramadan falls in June, as it did in 2016, and you live in Iceland or Alaska, you may be fasting for 22 hours straight, every day. And wishing you lived, in, say, the Maldives.

So: December 28. My Year of 40 is almost over. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I owe you the rest of the details about November, my month of “small kindnesses.” I know you’ve been eagerly awaiting my follow-up post, revealing those kindnesses. You haven’t been able to sleep, so much have you been anticipating this post!

Toss and turn no more, dear reader. Below, I offer you the complete set: 30 acts of kindness, and as a bonus, one meanness.¹

My month of small kindnesses, in chronological order (one per day):

Sent out a copy of the slides from my resume workshop to a number of attendees who had requested them.

Had coffee and gave career advice to a woman who had sought me out.

Did additional research into possible VC firms for our next fundraising round.

Agreed to host my peer networking group when the original host backed out.

Gave up my favorite seat on the ferry.

Looking back on the list, I’m struck by how truly small some of the kindnesses are. For example: giving a person a compliment is something that requires no extra effort, time, or money on my part. And yet, it undoubtedly gave the recipient a boost, perhaps even made her day. I’ve enjoyed this nudge out of my comfort zone- and really, a small nudge has been all that is required to bring these kindnesses to the surface.

Still, I am no saint. I had one massive unkindness that I’d like to own up to.

Notably:

Took movie seats for me and two of my children from a woman who had been saving them.

I cringe even writing that. But I did it. On November 29, at the 3:30 screening of Moana. I can try to explain it away (the movie was starting; two teenagers on the other side of the block of seats told me to do it; there were no other seats together left in the theater; I was desperate)– but the fact remains, I should not have done that. The woman saving the seats was angry — as I would have been, in her shoes.

Does my act of meanness take away from my acts of kindness? I know we are yin and yang; we have both aspects in each of us. While I don’t think I can completely purge myself of all meanness, perhaps the more that I focus on kindness, the fewer such meannesses will ever surface. Perhaps the nudge toward kindness will no longer be required, because kindness will become my new default.

My main takeaway from the month is that being a kind person feels good (a lot better than the feeling of taking someone’s saved seats), and that generally speaking, there are opportunities to be kind all around us. We just have to look for them.

* * * * *

¹I’m sure there were others. This is the one that has stuck with me.

²I know what you’re thinking: that doesn’t really count. Look, not every kindness has to be a hardship on me, okay?

³I have been doing more of this in recent years. I like giving gifts that have a positive impact somewhere else, in addition to the recipient. Some of my favorite sites for this:

We all have narratives we tell about ourselves. There are words that we think pertain to us and other words that we would never use to describe ourselves. For instance: “confident” is a word that I would comfortably claim, and I believe that it’s a word that others would attribute to me, as well. More “Jill words” might include extroverted, candid, and ambitious.

The word “kind” has never been on my version of the list. To be clear: I don’t think I’m unkind. But I don’t believe “kind” is a word that jumps to mind as one of my dominant attributes. And maybe it’s time for me to take small steps to change that.

Apologies for the generic “kindness” photo.

With this in mind, I made November my month of small kindnesses. Each day, I am holding myself accountable for (at least) one small act of kindness. The kindness must be “incremental”- something above and beyond what I would normally do in my day.

I am also trying to make sure that not all, or even most, of my acts of kindness are driven by money. It would be easy enough to check the box by giving a dollar to a homeless person every day, but I’m not sure I would come away from the month with the feeling that I’ve learned anything.

I was curious to see what effect these acts of kindness would have, both on the people to whom I show kindness, and on me. Two-thirds of the way through the month, I have a few interesting findings.

Kindnesses are both easy and hard. When I’m thinking about my goal, and looking for opportunities to be kind, they present themselves readily. (Full dishwasher at work? Jill will unload it! Heading out for coffee? I’ll grab an extra for one of my colleagues! etc.) But when I’m wrapped up in my work, or busy at home with the kids, it is very easy to forget to look for ways to be kind.

Kindness is addictive. I am really enjoying performing these small acts, and I feel more alive and zestful than ever. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The kindness feels more rewarding when there’s a direct human impact. This might be specific to my own experience. I’ve noticed that, in terms of the emotional lift they give me, not all kindnesses are created equal. For instance: bringing a smile to our doormen’s faces by bringing them their favorite treats gives me a bigger high than helping unknown anthropologists save time by tagging animals in the Serengeti online.

At the end of the month, I’ll chronicle the 30 acts of kindness I performed, along with any final take-aways. Stay tuned!

This was my baby in April. It’s easy to be kind to cuteness like this.

The night before my triathlon, my 4-year-old son brought me the book “The Race” to read to him and his sister. A reimagining of “The Tortoise and the Hare,” this book was exceedingly appropriate in that moment.

“What place are you going to get, Mommy?” asked my 6-year-old daughter. “First, or second, or third?” “Umm… probably 48th,” I said, choosing a fairly arbitrary number. Having no idea how many people had signed up, I figured perhaps I’d get 48th among females, or in my age group, or something. “Remember, mommy is going to be like the tortoise- slow and steady. My goal is just to finish.”

And finish I did, but I’ll get to that. First, a few notes from my triathlon experience.

In triathlons, you have to get “body-marked”- meaning they take a Sharpie and put your bib number on various parts of your body. They also write your age on your calf. They told me I was 40. I politely corrected them: technically, I’d turn 40 one week after the triathlon. Doesn’t matter, they said; they assign people’s age groups based on their age at the end of the calendar year. In its way, this was a small win: although I had to embrace 40 one whole week early, I also got placed in an older (and, no doubt, less competitive) age group.

Seeing people’s ages on their calves during the race had an interesting effect. In the absence of knowing anything else about them, I reduced the athletes to an age, a number. If someone passed me who was much older, I felt impressed. Similarly, I couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride if I passed someone who was much younger.

The swim: I was pleasantly surprised to find that the water was warmer than when I had swam in the Bay just days before (and nearly hyperventilated from the cold). I swam steadily, but as it turns out, I’m terrible at “sighting” (e.g. aiming for my target). Every time I looked up to take stock of where I was, I would find myself off-course. Indeed, the swim was my weakest segment, but I was pleased to make it through. Most of the fellow white-caps (e.g. women over 40) had left me in their wake, and the orange cap group (men 45+) caught up to me, as evidenced in the photo below.

A wetsuit isn’t flattering on anyone, right? Right?

The bike: two mistakes here. First, I had drunk too much water prior to the swim, so I got on my bike with a full bladder. After completing my first of 3 loops without seeing a single bathroom, I faced the question: could I possibly hold off another hour (until the transition to the run, where there were facilities)? No, I could not. As I debated whether I’d be able to find a tree that was sufficiently hidden, I spotted a restroom in a parking lot (the bike portion took place in a state park), and luckily enough, it was unlocked. I lost a few minutes but had a new surge of energy after getting back on the bike. (Note to self: drink less water next time.)

Second mistake: you are required to get off your bike and walk it into the transition area. I unclipped my shoes to do so, but as I swung my right leg over the bike to walk it, my left foot clipped back in (unbeknownst to me). So I toppled in slow motion onto my left side. Ouch. Luckily, nothing was bruised except my pride (and really- even that wasn’t bruised too much. I’ve always been the clumsy one in the family.)

I look happy here, so I must have already found the restroom.

Last: the run. As I suspected, this was my strongest leg. Whereas I constantly had people passing me in the swim and the bike, on the run, I was the passer. Even though I was committed to being the tortoise, my competitive nature can only be suppressed so much. Passing people felt good.

That person running the other way in the picture? He’s heading toward the finish line, while I’m just starting the run. All good, says the tortoise.

The run went by fairly quickly, and I made up some of the time I had lost on my swim and on my transitions.¹

I crossed the finished line and learned that I had finished in 3:02. In the abstract, it’s a time that didn’t mean much to me. I looked at the details and discovered that I was faster at the swim (33 minutes) and on the bike (15mph average) than I had been in my training, and about the same in my run (8:40 min/mile). So, I was pleased. Later, they posted the results, and I discovered that I placed 2nd in my age group. This was a first! I had never been on the podium before. They called my name, and people I didn’t know cheered for me, and I was given the choice of a towel, a hat, or a backpack.²

Sadly, my family wasn’t around for my finish or for my podium moment. The shuttle bus they were waiting for never arrived; by the time they drove as far as they could and walked the rest of the way, I had been finished for 45 minutes. No matter: when they finally arrived, the kids had their pick of the leftover post-race goodies (bananas! yogurt! ice cream sandwiches!) and we enjoyed some family time on the podium.

So… triathlon, check. Everyone told me “I would be hooked” after my first one. Am I? I’m not sure. I’m not hooked on open-water swimming (and would need to buy a wetsuit if I planned to do that regularly. Also it would help if I could learn to sight). I do like the road biking in China Camp, but again, I’d have to buy a decent bike if I planned to make triathlons a regular thing. So I suspect that I’ll go back to doing the occasional road race. One of the beautiful things about running, from my perspective, is the complete lack of gear. Running shoes, and you’re set. As a result, I can – and do- go running anywhere. Swimmers and bikers don’t have that advantage. However, triathlons do offer the benefits of variety during training, and a better full-body workout. Also- it seems they appeal to far fewer people than running races, meaning if I ever hope to make a “podium” again, I should probably stick with triathlons. 🙂

Tomorrow I turn 40, and you know what? I’m ready.

* * * * *

¹My first transition (from swim to bike) took me nearly 5 minutes. You know how long it takes most people? 1-2 minutes. So… there’s definitely room to improve there. I’ll blame my Strava app, which inexplicably refused to open and load properly.

²”Please tell me you chose the backpack!” said my friend. And then we both had a good laugh.

Anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that I’m a competitive person.¹ Also, I like to exercise. So when a milestone birthday rolls around, I’m inclined to celebrate by undertaking a new physical challenge. For my year of 40, I decided I would attempt my first triathlon.

Over the summer, I scanned the triathlon calendar, and I ended up choosing the Marin County Triathlon. It is practically in my backyard, which is a big plus, and the timing of it, literally one week before my 40th birthday, seemed perfect. Plus, having committed in July, I was left with about 12 weeks to train: enough to be able to do the race comfortably, but not so much that I would get sick of training.

Some background: I’m pretty comfortable as a runner. I’ve run distances up to a marathon before, and a 4-6 mile run is a typical workout for me. Swimming is something that I’ve done for exercise, off and on, over the past 8 years. During that time, I’ve gone from being unable to swim even one lap of freestyle, to today, when I can comfortably swim a mile. Of the three sports, biking is the one I have the least practice in. I don’t even own a bike; the only biking I’ve done in recent years has been commutes of 1-2 miles on a heavy, sturdy, Bay Area Bike Share bike.

Me, running on the beach in Costa Rica

The Marin triathlon offers both sprint and olympic distances. I initially signed up for the sprint distance (500m swim, 8mi bike, 5k run), mostly because I have so little time to devote to training. Then a friend badgered me into switching to the Olympic distance– so I caved, under peer pressure. For the Olympic, I have to swim 1500m, bike 22 miles, and run 10km. The individual distances, done separately, don’t intimidate me; putting them back to back is where the challenge lies.

The triathlon is one week away, but I thought it might be fun to share some things I’ve learned so far.

Things triathletes know that the rest of us don’t:

1. A “brick” is the most essential, if most dreaded, part of training. I heard this term bandied about soon after I started training. A brick is a back-to-back workout of two different sports, generally bike followed by run. I assumed that it was an acronym, like Bike Run Intense Combo (or perhaps Bike? Run? Ick!), but I was told that the term “brick” refers to how your legs feel during the run. Meh, I think I like the acronym better.

2. The race is won or lost on the bike. This was very disappointing for me to learn, given that the bike is my weakest event. It turns out, the amount of time you save by being a great swimmer compared to an average swimmer is almost negligible, compared to the amount of time you can save by being a great biker versus an average biker.

3. Everyone who signs up for triathlons generally dislikes the swim. My theory: the strong swimmers have figured out #2 and said, “Why should I bother with triathlons?” Whereas the strong bikers are all, “Sweet, I can dominate this sport.”

4. People obsess over the transitions. Real triathletes (I am not counting myself among them) figure out all sorts of shortcuts to make their transitions (the time it takes between sports) as short as possible. Examples: oil your body, to make your wetsuit easier to get off (I might actually try this); take your feet out of your bike shoes while you’re still biking, so that you can hop into your running shoes more quickly (I would probably fall and break a bone if I tried this).

My goal for this triathlon is just to finish. I don’t care what time I get. I’ve sort of made up my training schedule as I went along, based on what I could fit in, when. For the curious, I’ve posted my actual training schedule below.

I’ll post again in a week. In the meantime, wish me luck!

* * * * *

¹To wit: my husband would generally prefer that I not play games with his family.

One of the tragedies of my adult life is that I’ve found myself living so far away from most of my dearest friends. Take, for example, my best friends from grade school. We live plane-rides apart: Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco. With busy lives (jobs, spouses, children) — coupled with the high cost of travel — we rarely get to see each other. It requires a nearly super-human effort to get us all in the same place, even though we generally want nothing more than that.

J.A.A.A.M

My year of 40 is also their year of 40, give or take a few months. I knew I wanted to see them, and a 40th birthday trip felt like something I could get them to rally behind. Also, in “year of 40” style, I wanted us to go somewhere I had never been. Nine months after the planning began, we made it: a week in Costa Rica, all together.

Readers, it was everything I had hoped it would be and more.

Sunset over Playa Guiones, Nosara, Costa Rica

We were looking for a town in which we could do yoga and go surfing. Astrid had heard of Nosara from a friend, so Ashley set to researching it, and the town seemed to meet our requirements. After settling on the last week of September (based on everyone’s travel and work schedules), we booked our flights and reserved a bungalow at the Harmony Hotel.

The pool at the Harmony Hotel

One noteworthy thing about traveling to Nosara is that it is a 2 ½ hour drive from the nearest airport, and the second half of that drive is on a pothole-ridden dirt road, making for one of the bumpier rides I have ever been on. The natives (and the expats who have discovered Nosara) like this feature, as they say it keeps a lot of the tourists away.

September is the rainy season in Nosara, and the weather report in the days leading up to our departure was incredibly depressing. 100% chance of rain: morning thunderstorms, afternoon thunderstorms, evening thunderstorms. This was the forecast for every day I was to be in Costa Rica. I packed my raincoat, books, playing cards. I figured I would have to hunker down in our cabin, and I was rather disappointed at the prospect.

Sunny days. Umbrella used as sunshade or prop.

Fortunately, the forecast was a vast overstatement. Most days, an afternoon or an evening thunderstorm would roll in for a half-hour or an hour. Nada mas! These thunderstorms were epic: lightning, heavy rain, loud claps of thunder. I actually loved the rain, which didn’t impact our activities at all.

Better still, the rain keeps tourists away. I suppose the threat of a “rainy season” makes most people choose a different time of year to visit CR — all the better for us. The town was like a ghost town. There was one couple with a baby who stayed at our hotel; our yoga classes only ever had 1-2 participants besides us. We had the pool, the restaurants, the vast beaches, almost all to ourselves. Some of the businesses had shuttered for the season, but enough restaurants were open to keep us fed, and we wanted for nothing.

Aerial yoga (a first!): we comprised 5/6 of the class.

Our days in Nosara were like a dream: a beautiful, leisurely pastiche of eating well, physical activity (run/walk/surf/swim/yoga), time for ourselves, and time with friends. We could fit so much in our days, when there was no work to interfere, no children making demands, no commute to rob us of precious minutes.

Yoga in paradise

The next time I’m asked, “What would your perfect day be like?” I might respond with a description of my last day in Costa Rica. It went like this:

Wake up. Go surfing. Eat a delicious breakfast. Read and relax for an hour. Do an intense level 2/3 yoga class. Indulge in a tropical green smoothie. Get a massage. Shower, read some more. Go out to the beach for champagne at sunset. Watch as a sea turtle makes her way to the ocean, having laid her eggs. Walk to a restaurant and enjoy dinner and drinks with friends. Walk back to the hotel. Sleep soundly.

Mama sea turtle crawls back to the ocean

Our trip was magical, in part because of Nosara, and all it offers, but moreso because I experienced it with my friends. I cherish them. I already miss our belly laughs, our stories, and our pondering of life’s great questions.